NATO Invites Defense Firms to Discuss Arms Supply for Ukraine

NATO defense ministers will convene with the heads of 25 major defense manufacturers on Thursday (June 15) to discuss Ukraine’s need for more weapons and replenish their own stockpiles.

This was reported by EURACTIV on June 12. The roundtable will be chaired by the NATO Industrial Advisory Group (NIAG) instead of Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Companies invited to the meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on June 15-16 are: U.S. companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, Belgium’s FN Herstal, French-Italian MBDA, Finland’s Patria, Germany’s Rheinmetall, Norway’s Nammo, KNDS – a merger of German KMW and French Nexter – Italy’s Leonardo, Turkey’s Roketsan and Baykar,  Portugal’s Tekever, British BAE Systems, Romania’s Romarm, Croatia’s battle tank producer Đuro Đaković Grupa, Estonia’s Milrem Robotics, and Belgium’s Thales.

The meeting with industry “will have a specific focus on battle-decisive munitions”, one NATO official told EURACTIV ahead of the meeting.

Kyiv’s Western allies are exploring how to continue sending it the necessary military equipment, governments have asked defense companies to ramp up production, while companies are requesting clear long-term demand signals to justify investment into new production capacities, supply chains and personnel.

NATO has reportedly looked at setting up a new Defense Production Action Plan to identify targets for investment and aggregate demand signals from the alliance’s members for the industry.

Sources told the news outlet that the meeting will be a step forward regarding work on the future action plan. However, no formal agenda has been circulated and no concrete outcome is expected.